We have set down these extracts in the time-order in which they were written and not in the time-order of the recorded facts. Thus St. Luke's record comes last. Yet it narrates facts earlier than those recorded in the three earlier Epistles of St. Paul.

The principle here involved is of fundamental importance in deciding the value of facts omitted by an earlier writer but recorded by a later.

The first extract is from the first letter St. Paul wrote to the much-tried converts in Corinth. This unique letter—almost the most characteristic of his letters—remains the bridge between the Epistle to the Galatians in all later epistles. When we reflect that it gives St. Peter a place of primacy four times, that it has the very form of consecrating the Blessed Sacrament, and that it discusses almost in philosophical terms the doctrine of bodily resurrection—we may wonder why St. Paul sends the salutation of a man Aquila and (presumably) his wife Priscilla.